Meet Kenza, our Head of Customer Success
Meet Kenza, our Head of Customer Success. Kenza joined Acre to start our Customer Success team back in September 2019. We spoke to Kenza on her 3-year “Acre-versary”.
What made you want to join Acre?
I came across Acre while attending an event organised by Founders Factory, the venture studio. I loved the idea of doing something about mortgages as that was the one area of Finance that had seen little technology disruption at the time. That’s what drew me to the company to start with.
I then met some of its early joiners, whose talent and passion about the problem Acre was trying to solve, in addition to confidence with regards to what I could achieve there despite not having prior Customer Success experience on paper, convinced me that this was the place where I should go next.
What does a typical day look like for your team?
The Customer Success team covers everything from brokers’ onboarding, support, training, content creation, to looking after our customers from day one and ensuring that they’re successful in adopting and using our platform. We know our clients really well and advocate for them if we feel that certain improvements to the platform are needed to help them use Acre better and more efficiently.
What were you doing before?
I was an investment banker for a decade in my previous life! So different from what I am doing now but such a great experience that’s made me the client fanatic person that I am today.
I started in Trading and Sales then moved to the Origination division of my former employer.
Banking taught me a lot from delivering the best service to customers to being able to analyse complex situations and bringing them to a successful resolution efficiently. I gained transferable skills that I am using in my role every day.
After a few years, I started thinking of exploring the start-up space that I had been attracted to for a while. It took me 3 years to decide to make the leap. Fintech was then an obvious move given my background.
What superhero power do you bring to the team?
It’s probably omnipresence. Being in this position literally requires me to be everywhere and wear different hats, whether working with the team to ensure our day-to-day Customer Success operations run smoothly, discussing users’ feedback with our Product team to provide an additional angle when defining our roadmap or being there for our customers ensuring that we deliver the best service to them to state a few.
That technically means that I should be working around the clock, but my superpower allows me to perform that in less than 24 hours a day! :)
What career advice would you give to someone looking to follow in your footsteps?
Don’t let anyone make you think that you won’t be succeeding in your aspired career move and that you’d be better off remaining where you are. You’ll meet a a lot of sceptics that like to remain in their comfort zone.
Don’t let them discourage you and listen to your inner voice. “You’re not ready. You don’t know enough. This isn’t the right environment for you. You’ll fail in your move. Your experience is irrelevant”. I heard that when looking to make my career transition so many times! I kept going regardless. You might hear the same but be confident in your skills while remaining conscious of your development areas.
You’ll meet amazing and passionate people along the way who will be happy to guide you and give you good advice. Take the time to learn about the industry and meet as many people as you can, not so they give you a job, but rather so they suggest additional areas to explore. Do some studies if you think that’s necessary but not because you feel that you have to. Choose a company that takes a view on what you can deliver and sees beyond what you’ve achieved so far.
Once you’re settled in your new role, never forget to keep an eye on talent attempting to make a similar move and help other people join the Fintech movement!